To promote free software usage the Project has developed its own free operating system namely IT@School Linux, which is now being used in all schools. The highlights are-
√ Development of examination software for conduct of IT practical examination for more than 15 lakh students, first ever vast deployment of computer and resourceful manpower for conduct of an examination entirely in free software platform.
√ Development of educational software in association with CDAC, CDIT etc.
√ Development of educational content for ViCTERS (Virtual classroom technology on EDUSAT for rural schools) channel through EDUSAT network.
√ Localized content development through distribution of Handycam to schools.
√ Development of e-text books and Content CDs for IT enabled education.
The Project has trained about 90,000 teachers in ICT. The areas of training include:.
√ Basic Computer Literacy
√ IT enabled education training (Physics and Maths using Phoenix and K Tech lab)
√ Upper Primary (UP) roll out
√ Content sourcing and developing training
√ E-learning training by DOEACC
Training in the pipeline for this academic year
√ Hardware training for SITC in schools
√ Internet familiarization and utilization training
√ Linux training etc.
The beauty of the project is that it has not engaged separate manpower for looking into IT need of the schools. The existing teachers are trained by resourceful Master Trainers of the Project (the Master Trainers are itself trained teachers from schools). The resources with the Project for field level coordination are as follows.
√ Manpower includes about 200 trained Master Trainers (resource persons)
√ About 5600 school IT coordinators to attend to the ICT/IT need of the schools
√ Fully equipped central State Project Office at Thiruvananthapuram.
√ Linux Resource Center (Regional Resource Center) at Ernakulam.
√ District resource centers at all districts for district level monitoring with well established computer labs.
√ Central uplinking stations and well furnished studio at Thiruvananthapuram for EDUSAT network
√ 95 Satellite interactive terminals (SITs) all over Kerala with EDUSAT training facility.
√ Receive Only Terminals (ROTs) in all schools for reception of educational Programmes through ViCTERS(Virtual classroom technology on EDUSAT for rural schools) educational channel.
With more than 5 years experience in FOSS in educational sector the Project has seen both economical and technological impact of FOSS that integrates the global user. The Kerala IT Education Department believes that sharing is an important virtue. However, sharing proprietary software would be a violation of the End User. Building collaboration and sharing practices are essential factors for the well being of societies and proprietary software often denies that. Against the odds that Proprietary software are user friendly, the effort of the Project saw educational community in Kerala accepting open source technology. Its own Linux supporting mechanism and a Linux resource center to clarify all the queries in operational and software requirement issues and there is constant interaction among these sections is an advantage.
In the case of Project, the free software platform is IT@School Linux, a free version of operating system was indigenously developed in association with free software foundation. The open source materials developed/used by the Project includes
√ IT@School Linux- Free software operating system which is now used in entire schools in Kerala
√ Application softwares like Open office, GIMP, Dr. Geo, Rasmol, KEduca, Klab etc.
√ Examination software –to conduct IT practical examination to more than16 lakh students
√ Handbook for Linux – prepared as a user manual for working in IT@School Linux
√ Training modules in Linux – to train teachers in open source
√ Textbook for standard 8th 9th and 10th – Prepared in association with SCERT
Challenges faced while FOSS implemention
√ Enabling Linux and FOSS based education in 2,738 high schools brought along its own set of challenges.
√ Resourceful Manpower to train was the single biggest challenge in the implementation.
√ Creating a single curriculum based on GNU/Linux was another issue to counter because there were many distributions of the OS and the schools had already installed different distributions.
√ To provide support to the schools where GNU/Linux was being used.
√ To train high school teachers in free software
√ To develop software for conduct of IT practical examination in free software platform
√ To conduct IT practical examination in free software for than 14 lakh students in Kerala
√ Customization of all application in free software platform
√ To develop educational content in free software platform
Solutions for overcoming challenges
√ In the first phase, over 40,000 teachers had to be trained for over 90 hours on Linux based systems. The Project has started training its resource personnel in free software with help of Free Software Foundation. The Project has trained about 90,000 teachers in open platform.
√ A Resource Centre has been established in Kochi for conducting teacher training in Linux.
√ First initiative includes development of a free platform Operating system called IT@School Linux. The project has now released 3 updated versions of the OS and a IT@School Linux - Lite version which even works in computers of low configuration.
√ Initially the examination for IT practical was developed on proprietary software. Then, it was developed in open source plat form and now for the first time in the world, examination for about 15 lakh students is being conducted in free software platform.
Cost advantage
The Project has supplied about 50,000 computers to schools. The proprietary OS and other application software come to about Rs. 10,000/- per PC for licensed software. Also the Educational content like interactive multimedia CDs are now being developed on free software platform, resulting in a savings of Rs. 75 lakhs. Also the examination software being developed using free software results in a saving of about Rs. 25 lakhs. Thus a total of Rs. 41 cr was saved by shifting to free software platform.
√ Already piloted in 38 selected UP schools
√ Full scale implementation this year
√ The content for education already been prepared in association with C-Dit
Need for introduction of IT education in UP schools:
As of now IT education at the High School level is in full swing and this sector is ready to enter into the next level – IT enabled education, where IT is more than a tool to teach other subjects than a subject by itself. It has also to be noted that the High School sector is now completely shifted to ITSchool Linux. The need for introducing the project in UP level is as follows:
√ The ultimate aim of the Project is to create an effective teaching mechanism by utilising IT as a tool can be envisaged only by introducing IT in UP level
√ The students from UP level are given an IT orientation when they reach High School level.
√ The standard of education of entire school level can be improved by introducing IT in UP level
√ Already some training has been given to the teachers in some parts of the state by certain agencies. This requires a uniformity in training and a central command post to coordinate such training.
Present Scenario:
The details of schools in UP sector of Kerala are as follows:
1. Total number of UP schools in Kerala 3038
2. Number of Govt. UP schools 955
3. Number of Aided UP schools 1870
4. Number of Unaided UP schools 213
The details of teacher population in UP sector are as follows:
No. of teachers in UP schools
Govt. Aided Unaided Total
17387 32380 3628 53395
The details of student’s population in UP sector are as follows:
No. of students in UP schools
Govt. Aided Unaided Total
Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls
213957 202992 484808 463536 53284 45504 752049 712032
Objectives:
√ To introduce IT enabled education effectively in the UP section thereby reaching about 10 lakhs of students who can make use of IT as an effective tool in the teaching – learning process.
√ To develop a specific resource group to satisfy the IT curriculum requirement in UP sector.
√ To train about 60,000 UP teachers in IT and to utilise its virtues in teaching – learning process.